Art and literature are believed as the soft manifestations of
a nation’s ideikigy and are supposed to reflect the history, cultural traits,
likes and dislikes, social manners, language and etiquettes of the concerned
community. All over the world the same purpose is served by the drama and film
industry and contribute to the culture and language concerned through public
diplomacy. But unfortunately there has been one glaring exception in this raged,
i.e the Pashto film/drama industry- the only film/drama industry which is out
in doing a great disservice to its own culture, distorting its history and
misrepresenting the social ways of its
people.
The motifs of the films are typical pakhton elites who are
all the times indulged in merry making, encroaching over their fellows properties,
suppressing people with lower economic means,
and the elites always at bloody wars with each other. The cross-section
into pakton society, as given by these films reflects that pakhton neither know
civilization, nor possess the milk of human kindness. You will never find a
character representing pakhton as doctor, engineer ,educator, philanthropist or
even at least a civilized person. They are reflected as sages as had been in
the pre-society era, propounded by Thomas Hobbes and Rosseau in their state of
nature. The worrying bit in these dramas is the ways in which male’s behavior
towards woman is reflected. Woman is never given a respectable status, but is
reflected as a mere chattel for sexual satisfaction.
On the technical grounds the films/dramas are worst failure.
One will not know if there is any plot in the film or various incidents taking
place separately in the whole show. There is no logical unity and coherence in
the events and incidents taking place on the screen. The story begins either
with firing at each other, or dancing and drinking ,and after showing a couple
of such isolated parts the curtain is dropped down. An interesting flaw in the
films is the use of costumes of the characters. They wear hip-hugging jeans,
openly drink and make romances; things which are too rare even in the bollywood
movies. The girls and boys in such costume act with such songs which iterate
simplicity, rural setting and dress typical of pakhton’s culture. But over here
they act with these songs which are
totally about, Guddar,Lawo, and forest, dressed
in jeans and are among the state-of the art skyscrapers.
These things have nothing to do either with plankton’s
culture nor with the very art of drama. Pakhton culture is rooted in certain
well known traits, also known as Pahtonwali: Hospitality, Jirga (an informal
council consists of local elites, empowered to resolve internal issues), Panah,
(asylum to an oppressed person), Hujra ( a common guest house), Ashar (helping
each other in laborious jobs especially agricultural ones).
If we look at the Indian movies, we will come to know how
culture and language are promoted by the means of films/dramas. Everyone is
acquainted with concepts like holo,dewali,sundoor,karwachod, poojam mandir and
the terms pertaining thereto. They glorify their culture and present a soft
image of its society.
Now if we critically examine the pushto films, do we ever
find depiction of any of the traits? The answer is simply no, rather they are
hell bent on destroying the time- honored institutions of pakhtons. The
vulgarity they show under the banner of depicting the pakhton’s culture is by
no means justifiable, and therefore the production and propagation of such
materials must be checked.
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